Sunday and Monday Beggars

1900

Ian Maclaren Says There Is No Difference

"The pew is a testimony to the family and ought to be maintained with its doors removed, and it does not matter whether a man pays $50 a year for his pew or 50 cents," writes Ian Maclaren of "The Pew and the Man in It" in the Ladies' Home Journal.

"The church authorities should see that the householder has his pew, with room enough in it for himself, his wife and the children which God has given them.

"There is no reason in the world why the rich man should not pay a handsome sum for his church home. And some of us have never been able to understand why an artisan should not give something for his church home also.

"Surely every man wishes to do what is right in the direction of his church. Every self-respecting man likes to pay for his home whether it be large or small, and it touches a man's honor to live in a workhouse, where he pays no rent and depends on the public. There is no necessity that this home feeling and this just independence should be denied in the house of God, but it rather seems a good thing that the man who works and gives to provide a house where he and the children can live together in comfort and self-respect six days of the week should do his part to sustain the house where they worship God on the seventh day.

"He is a poor creature who will allow a rich man to pay his rent for him on week-days, and I have never been able to see where there is any difference between being a beggar on Sunday and a beggar on Monday."